Postcards From Istanbul: The Blue Mosque at Night

Istanbul (Turkey). Istanbul (and Turkey in general) are living very tough times in these days; and life seems not being the same as usual. Newspapers and blogs are full of articles, opinions, analysis, stories and – I guess – even some legend about the recent (failed) military coup. However, this place is not intended to talk about things that are not photography and emotions.

For this reason, in the past days I realized that what I can and I want to do is remembering the happiness, the beauty and the carefreeness of Istanbul – as I love(d) to photograph it so many times! It’s a task, at least I live it as such; and to accomplish it, I need to start from images like this one posted here. Why? Well, the reason is quite simple: I’m spending most of my time following the situation in Turkey since last Friday (also for reasons related to my work) and I feel I’m really bombed by photos of Istanbul so terribly different from the “typical images” I’m used to see. What I want to say is that usually, writing “Istanbul” on search engines, the typical image that comes out is something like the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Bosphorus or the markets; but in these days Istanbul is associated to tanks, protests and masses – even with some photos taken from others stages (Egypt, for example) and reused to create confusion!

So, sorry for being probably stereotyped and for recurring to a cliché, but I can’t resist anymore. Istanbul (and Turkey too) is not the mess we are watching in these days, and I want – googling “Istanbul” – to see again its postcards of landscapes in the top ranking. I think that only in this way it will be possible to re-establish the right order of things; and only in this way Istanbul and Turkey will return to be the same amazing destination they have been since ever.